Pages

Monday, August 30, 2010

Brotherly love

This recent comment on an old post by Dustin found its way into moderation. Since Dustin is otherwise occupied at the moment, I'll take a stab at it:

To the author of this blog: Wow. Is this what your brand of Christianity teaches you? It is hard to find as many bigoted and intolerant people in the world. Shame to see someone who supposedly calls himself "Christian" going off like you have. It is people like you who give Christians a bad reputation with so many people. I saw the Glenn Beck speech and I thought it was inspiring and his words sincere. Did you see it? Or were you too wrapped up in your own self righteous condemnation of everyone who doesn't follow the exact same tenants as you? If God sends a man like Glenn Beck to hell, then he is not a God of love or a just God, just a spiteful and cruel one. What we need is more brotherly love and unity in finding what unites us, not the kind of acrimony and un-Christian hatred that you displayed in your posting. I know that Mormonism features many tenants that are different from Baptist teachings, but if you look at the heart of what Mormon people feel and believe about Jesus Christ and living the gospel of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", they are essentially the same as those of other people who read and understand the words of Jesus.By cicero on Mormon Glenn Beck Speaking at Liberty University G... at 5:27 PM

i) Folks who can’t argue for their position fall back on first-shaking adjectives like “hatred,” “intolerance,” and “bigotry.” That tactic won’t work here.

ii) Whether or not Beck is sincere is irrelevant. Sincerity and veracity can lead separate lives, and often do.

iii) The commenter is typically blind to his own intolerance. He’s only tolerant of those who see things his way.

iv) The fact that he’d say God is spiteful and cruel for sending Beck to hell is a good illustration of folks who judge by tone and appearance rather than reality.

v) I’m all for brotherly love. But Beck is not my brother. He’s a lost soul. And he’s recruiting others to his false gospel.

vi) Since I’m not a Landlord, I don’t have any “tenants.”

vii) Then there’s the ignorant, revisionist history regarding Mormonism. But Joseph Smith regarded all of the existing denominations as apostate churches. Smith had to restore the “true,” long-lost Gospel.

Mormonism doesn’t regard the theology of other Christian traditions or denominations as essentially the same. Mormonism is a polytheistic, neopagan fertility cult with an autosoteric doctrine of apotheosis. It’s hard to think of any other Christian heresy that’s as systematically opposed to every Biblical doctrine as Mormonism, once you get past the traditional labels which it purloined from Christianity.

viii) ”Do unto others” is not a slogan you can uproot from its Biblical soil and transplant wherever you please. For instance, mob families also live by the golden rule: you kill my boy and I’ll kill yours.

ix) Incidentally, it’s clear that the Mormon hierarchy has no standards for public officials. I don’t see it cracking down on liberals like Harry Reid–or Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts. So we have conservative Mormons like Glenn Beck bashing liberal Mormons like Harry Reid while the hierarchy remains culpably silent.

Briefly, the key issues with Mormonism must be the following two questions:1) Who is Jesus Christ?2) How am I to be saved?

Mormons answer to the first is that Jesus was a created being (spirit-brother of Lucifer, specifically), who was born of a physical relationship between the Father and Mary. He became God.

The second is answered in the Book of Mormon when it reads, "For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all that we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23). Grace supplies the balance owing after our own effort.

These are not "goofy peripheral beliefs," but are the core of the Gospel message. When someone gets these wrong, they have stopped believing in the God of the Bible and have moved on to something of their own creation.

No, it is God Who gave the Truth and then manifested the Truth and when Truth prevails through our lives bad reputations come about!

1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1Jn 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1Jn 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 1Jn 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1Jn 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

This is the same writer who wrote this:

2Jn 1:8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 2Jn 1:9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 2Jn 1:10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 2Jn 1:11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

Who also wrote this:

3Jn 1:9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. 3Jn 1:10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

This is the same one who writes of what He said and Who also is the infamous One who said that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have Eternal Life!

Hmmmmmmmmm, methinks Ben might have gotten the lovin' part all messed up and all mixed up with his own emotions so that he cannot firmly grasp God's wrath and retribution towards unrepentant carnal sinners who refuse to accept His Truth?

Psa 7:11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. Psa 7:12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. Psa 7:13 He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. Psa 7:14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. Psa 7:15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. Psa 7:16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate. Psa 7:17 I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.